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Left luggage lockers will be reinstalled at a Belfast railway station after an absence of almost 30 years, thanks to new fingerprint technology.

The New Scientist reports that fear of bombers have kept lockers out of the city, but the new technology will be a huge deterrent. The Edinburgh-based company Smartlok which developed the process said it would enable fingerprints to be recorded, stored and recalled at a later date.

Smartlok chief executive Bob Laidlaw said: "What person, up to no good is going to deposit something where his identification is his fingerprint?".

Instead of using the fingerprint pattern, Smartlock uses Seimens-developed software called FingerTIP that records the capacitance (storage of a charge) of the ridges and valleys of the fingertip. These measurements are unique, and change only when a person dies or their fingers are cut off.

The fingerprint technology isn't just a deterrent to would-be terrorists but can also help people find a lost locker. If a fingerprint is presented to it, it will say which locker that pattern is associated with.